warning: autopilot overfamiliarity

[kuruma]

Almost killed us all the other day. With autopilot on while driving on a major dual carriageway, I leaned over to the baby who was in his car seat behind my wife in the passenger seat. He'd dropped his blanket. She couldn't reach it so I had a go. As I turned my body, my right leg caught the bottom of the steering wheel and rotated it clockwise. Autopilot disengaged and the car headed right towards the fast lane just as (oh the irony) a Model X was passing us. The car detected the lane change and steered us back into the lane missing the passing Model X by about 6 inches by my estimate from the footage. The Model X probably had alerts go off inside it too come to think of it.

By that point, I'd also manually started to correct the steering to the left, this led to an overcorrection towards the verge which both I and the car attempted to fight at the same time, etc. etc. left and right until the car and I came to an agreement over who should drive. By that point, we'd swerved wildly within our lane and it was probably the closest I've ever come to experiencing a major accident.

I'm in two minds as to whether being in a Tesla either prevented us from a major accident or made it more likely. I would never have attempted the maneouvre with the baby whilst driving a car without autopilot so that was a wakeup call to me that I've got a bit overdependent on it.

So, hopefully, others can learn from my mistake...

 

[M3noob]

Almost killed us all the other day. With autopilot on while driving on a major dual carriageway, I leaned over to the baby who was in his car seat behind my wife in the passenger seat. He'd dropped his blanket. She couldn't reach it so I had a go. As I turned my body, my right leg caught the bottom of the steering wheel and rotated it clockwise. Autopilot disengaged and the car headed right towards the fast lane just as (oh the irony) a Model X was passing us. The car detected the lane change and steered us back into the lane missing the passing Model X by about 6 inches by my estimate from the footage. The Model X probably had alerts go off inside it too come to think of it.

By that point, I'd also manually started to correct the steering to the left, this led to an overcorrection towards the verge which both I and the car attempted to fight at the same time, etc. etc. left and right until the car and I came to an agreement over who should drive. By that point, we'd swerved wildly within our lane and it was probably the closest I've ever come to experiencing a major accident.

I'm in two minds as to whether being in a Tesla either prevented us from a major accident or made it more likely. I would never have attempted the maneouvre with the baby whilst driving a car without autopilot so that was a wakeup call to me that I've got a bit overdependent on it.

So, hopefully, others can learn from my mistake...

Saved by the bong, I'd say. I've done 12K with 90ish percent on Nav on Autopilot. Saved the bacon at least twice. Much much much better behaved outside of Blighty barring a tendency to follow tar strips on Route des Anglais with low sun angle. Rare phantom braking, occasional flinches, tho.